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Help[Facts] Narelle, the mystery Australian name
For some reason Narelle popped into my mind again recently. In terms of usage, Narelle is sort of the female counterpart to Lachlan -- a name hugely more common in Australia than the rest of the world. But unlike Lachlan, its origin is mysterious and this site still says "origin unknown."
So I just thought I'd ask the Australian participants on this board if they have seen any new information on Narelle's origin lately. Has anyone tracked down when and where it was first given in Australia? The name is of such recent vintage that a grandchild or even child of the first Australian Narelle may still be living and able to shed some light on how it was created. So is anyone looking into this? :)
P.S. I notice the two comments about Narelle on this name board both trace it back to an "aboriginal" word, but give completely different interpretations. So I wonder if those ideas are any more accurate than a lot of the incorrect information about "Native American" names we have in the USA. :)
So I just thought I'd ask the Australian participants on this board if they have seen any new information on Narelle's origin lately. Has anyone tracked down when and where it was first given in Australia? The name is of such recent vintage that a grandchild or even child of the first Australian Narelle may still be living and able to shed some light on how it was created. So is anyone looking into this? :)
P.S. I notice the two comments about Narelle on this name board both trace it back to an "aboriginal" word, but give completely different interpretations. So I wonder if those ideas are any more accurate than a lot of the incorrect information about "Native American" names we have in the USA. :)
This message was edited 6/17/2007, 1:16 PM
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Replies
Ahh, Narelle . . .
You're right about the incorrect information problem. People make the exact same mistakes about "Aboriginal" as "American Indian": they assume that there's one language for all, and they randomly attribute untraceable names to these cultures, for no logical reason.
LadyLisa's comment drew my eye as I'm also from Western Australia, and I have just posted the following response:
Firstly, "Koori" is a tribal name from New South Wales and Victoria. The Aboriginal people of the Perth region are the Nyoongar.
Secondly, I have never seen any reference to Narelle as a Western Australian name. There is a town named Naraling which was named for a nearby spring (not lake), but the meaning of the spring's name is unknown. Watering places in the Nyoongar region tend to have been indicated by the syllable "up" at the end of the place name.
On to what I do know: there *is* a place named Narellan, a former village that is now an outer Sydney suburb. I did a heritage plan for it a few years ago, but sadly I couldn't find out the origin of the name. I have no idea whether Narelle is related.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narellan,_New_South_Wales
I found the following women named Narelle whose births were recorded in New South Wales between 1788 and 1906:
1890: WILSON, NARELLE O. Father: WILLIAM J. Mother: CAROLINE M M. Parish: LISMORE
1890: TINGCOMBE, NARELLE L. Father: JOHN L. Mother: ADA. Parish: WOOLLAHRA
1894: ARMSTRONG, NARELLE. Father: WILLIAM C. Mother: FLORENCE E. Parish: LEICHHARDT
You're right about the incorrect information problem. People make the exact same mistakes about "Aboriginal" as "American Indian": they assume that there's one language for all, and they randomly attribute untraceable names to these cultures, for no logical reason.
LadyLisa's comment drew my eye as I'm also from Western Australia, and I have just posted the following response:
Firstly, "Koori" is a tribal name from New South Wales and Victoria. The Aboriginal people of the Perth region are the Nyoongar.
Secondly, I have never seen any reference to Narelle as a Western Australian name. There is a town named Naraling which was named for a nearby spring (not lake), but the meaning of the spring's name is unknown. Watering places in the Nyoongar region tend to have been indicated by the syllable "up" at the end of the place name.
On to what I do know: there *is* a place named Narellan, a former village that is now an outer Sydney suburb. I did a heritage plan for it a few years ago, but sadly I couldn't find out the origin of the name. I have no idea whether Narelle is related.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narellan,_New_South_Wales
I found the following women named Narelle whose births were recorded in New South Wales between 1788 and 1906:
1890: WILSON, NARELLE O. Father: WILLIAM J. Mother: CAROLINE M M. Parish: LISMORE
1890: TINGCOMBE, NARELLE L. Father: JOHN L. Mother: ADA. Parish: WOOLLAHRA
1894: ARMSTRONG, NARELLE. Father: WILLIAM C. Mother: FLORENCE E. Parish: LEICHHARDT
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And thanks so much, Chrisell, for your information.
I wonder how much effort it would be to try to look up living relatives of the Narelles born in 1890 to see if there is a remembered story about where they got the name. Of course I realize you live a continent away from New South Wales so can't easily do this yourself. :)
I wonder how much effort it would be to try to look up living relatives of the Narelles born in 1890 to see if there is a remembered story about where they got the name. Of course I realize you live a continent away from New South Wales so can't easily do this yourself. :)
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Hehe - not easy, no.
Unfortunately this publicly available births data ends at 1906, so even if I used the database to find out who the Narelles married, I can't find out the names of their children. And since they're almost certainly all deceased now, the trail goes cold there.
There's no similar data available from any of the other Australian states, so it's impossible to tell whether it was used earlier elsewhere. For all we know, NSW might have been latecomers to Narelle!
I'll let you know if I find out anything else at any point - new databases may come online, if we're lucky.
Unfortunately this publicly available births data ends at 1906, so even if I used the database to find out who the Narelles married, I can't find out the names of their children. And since they're almost certainly all deceased now, the trail goes cold there.
There's no similar data available from any of the other Australian states, so it's impossible to tell whether it was used earlier elsewhere. For all we know, NSW might have been latecomers to Narelle!
I'll let you know if I find out anything else at any point - new databases may come online, if we're lucky.
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So, the earliest examples are from 1890 ... did anything happen in the life of Narellan round about then, to put it in the public eye? Perhaps it became a residential area, or a resident won cartloads of money and gave the neighbours a huge party? It seems from your Wikipedia reference that it's been around since about 1805, and then suddenly became attractive to namers nearly a century later. Odd ...
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I don't know if there could possibly be a link between Narellan and Narelle - it doesn't seem likely as I can't think of any other girls' name that came about in such a fashion.
Narellan has never been famous as far as I know - it's just a sleepy village on the edge of Sydney that's begun to be suburbanised in the last 10 years.
Narellan has never been famous as far as I know - it's just a sleepy village on the edge of Sydney that's begun to be suburbanised in the last 10 years.
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Well, we've got Emmarentia! Which is presumably named after some long-ago Emma Rens or Van Rensburg -- it's an old suburb of Johannesburg, just down the road from me, and it's caught on and become a standard name! I was at school with a girl named Rentia (her full name, and a putative short form), and there was an opera singer a few decades back who made it "Italian" and called herself Emma Renzi.
But if there isn't a link between Narellan and Narelle, then surely they must at least have, or have had, a common ancestor? Perhaps from some now extinct local language?
But if there isn't a link between Narellan and Narelle, then surely they must at least have, or have had, a common ancestor? Perhaps from some now extinct local language?
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"But if there isn't a link between Narellan and Narelle, then surely they must at least have, or have had, a common ancestor?"
Not necessarily. I don't know whether Narelle emerged in New South Wales, as we just don't have the data from other states. It's entirely possible that it emerged elsewhere and the similarity to Narellan is just a coincidence.
The local language isn't extinct so that can't be the problem.
Not necessarily. I don't know whether Narelle emerged in New South Wales, as we just don't have the data from other states. It's entirely possible that it emerged elsewhere and the similarity to Narellan is just a coincidence.
The local language isn't extinct so that can't be the problem.
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You say that Emmarentia was "presumably" named after such a woman, but is there real historical evidence for that? Emmarentia looks to me to be simply a respelling of Emerentia, the name of an early Christian martyr in Rome. This becomes Emerenzia in modern Italian, Emerencia in Spanish, and Emerence in French. Indeed, my Dutch name dictionary (Woordenboek van Voornamen by van der Schaar) gives Emmarentia as one of several spellings of this name that has been used in the Netherlands. So it seems likely to me that the town in South Africa was named after a woman whose full given name was Emmarentia, and that the idea that it's named after an "Emma Rens" is a folk etymology developed after Emmarentia had become unknown as a given name in the area.
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Oh, is *that* where Emerence comes from?
Thank you! A favourite book of mine as a kid had a character named Emerence, and I've never been able to work out the origin.
:-)
Thank you! A favourite book of mine as a kid had a character named Emerence, and I've never been able to work out the origin.
:-)
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I've only managed to check one place, so I don't guarantee anything; but it gives the founding lady, sure enough, as Miss Emmarentia Botha and the time as 1887. No further details on where Miss E got her name from, but it's often difficult to extrapolate Dutch names to South Africa because many Dutch people are Catholics and therefore quite likely to name their children after martyrs, but Afrikaner Protestants would most certainly hesitate! We have a small surname stock, and a small given name stock as well. I'll dig deeper as soon as I can.
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Being Australian, I have known a few Narelle's. I also have given very little thought as to where it came from.
I suspect however, it is a created name dating maybe back to the 1950's, as I know my mother-in-law's sister (Jenelle) was going to be a Narelle, but they didn't agree on the name. I haven't known of a Narelle older than 60 either. This is just conjecture however, and could be wrong.
I also think perhaps it is a combined variant of Norma and the French suffix elle. Probably an attempt to make it sound more classy (and failing miserably in my opinion!)
ed typo
I suspect however, it is a created name dating maybe back to the 1950's, as I know my mother-in-law's sister (Jenelle) was going to be a Narelle, but they didn't agree on the name. I haven't known of a Narelle older than 60 either. This is just conjecture however, and could be wrong.
I also think perhaps it is a combined variant of Norma and the French suffix elle. Probably an attempt to make it sound more classy (and failing miserably in my opinion!)
ed typo
This message was edited 6/18/2007, 5:03 AM
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